The present invention is directed to portable quartz floodlights, and more specifically to a frameless fixture for such floodlights which eliminates the expensive conventional frame casting that holds the wire guard and lens to the housing.
Portable quartz floodlights have become extremely popular to consumers in recent years. Such floodlights enable a consumer to extend the daylight activities with a portable source of light. Thus, these quartz floodlights have been found useful for recreational purposes such as camping, boating, entertaining, and sports such as volleyball and basketball; as a spotlight for decorating homes during holidays; for construction purposes such as painting, cleaning gutters, building decks, installing doors and windows, or pouring cement at night; or for emergency situations such as automotive problems, frozen pipes, and the like.
Portable quartz floodlights, presently available in the marketplace, generally include a stand for supporting the lamp housing on some horizontal surface, a rather large handle formed as an extension of the stand for carrying the lamp from place to place, and a lamp housing. The lamp housing generally includes a top wall, bottom wall, side walls, and a rear wall which support a reflector therein having a generally rectangular open front. A quartz lamp is mounted within the housing at the base of the reflector and is connected to an electrical source. The front opening is closed by a transparent glass lens. Because of the tremendous heat generated by the quartz lamp, a safety guard is provided across the lens. The safety guard is generally a plurality of curved wires connected to some type of frame, and the wires extend across the lens. As a result, if the lamp tips over forwardly, the wires keep the hot lens from contacted anything that might be flammable. Also the wires prevent a user's fingers from contacting the glass lens which is extremely hot. reduction if a substitute means for attaching the guard and lens were developed.
In the present invention, the frame is eliminated to provide a frameless portable quartz fixture. The function of the frame has been replaced by a plurality of rather simple clips which overlie the edge portion of the lens and the frame portion of the wire guard to retain them in tightly assembled relationship to the housing. To accomplish this result, a forwardly projecting lip is added to the housing flange, and the flange is provided with a plurality of outwardly protruding ears. The aforesaid clips are so constructed to overlie the frame of the wire guard and edge of the lens. Each clip is secured to one of the ears to secure it in place. In a preferred embodiment, the means for retaining the clip in gripping relation to the wire guard and lens is a boss cast in the surface of each ear which includes a threaded opening to receive a fastener. Obviously, other retaining means could be provided.
A second cost-reducing improvement to the portable fixture is a change in the handle construction. Rather than the handle being an extension of the support frame, the handle in the present invention has been simplified in the form of an L-shaped member which is secured to a tab or protuberance on the top of the fixture housing. This handle is much simpler, easier to manufacture, and results in a more economical cost, while providing the same function of transporting the fixture from place to place.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide improvements in portable quartz floodlights.
It is another object of the present invention to improve portable quartz floodlights by eliminating the frame casting which has been used to secure the wire guard and lens to the front of the housing.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a portable quartz floodlight with a plurality of clips which are used to secure the frame and lens to the front of the housing.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a portable quartz floodlight of the type described in which the large bulky handle is replaced by a simple handle member attached directly to the fixture housing.
Other objects and a fuller understanding of the invention will become apparent from reading the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment in conjunction with the drawings.